


I know when to take a hint

by hawkeyedpeas (pandacowhipster)



Category: The Get Down (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-10 22:11:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7863073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pandacowhipster/pseuds/hawkeyedpeas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Have you ever been in love?” Dizzee asks.<br/>Shao barks out a laugh, “hell no.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	I know when to take a hint

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [I know when to take a hint](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8462731) by [quicksilverys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicksilverys/pseuds/quicksilverys)



Dizzee’s putting the finishing touches on Rumi’s opera glasses when Shao enters the temple. He’s glad he’s almost done, Shao’s got a tense, frantic energy that isn’t always good for his creative process.

“Where everybody else?” He asks when he sees Dizzee’s by himself.

“Dinner, I think,” Dizzee replies, he wasn’t exactly paying attention, he just knows somewhere around drawing Rumi’s top hat, the place got a lot quieter.

“So why the fuck are you still here?” Shao asks, shrugging off his jacket and flopping down on a mattress.

Dizzee caps his marker and tucks it in his back pocket, “if everyone thinks I’m here, I don’t have to say where I’m going.”

Shao gives him the usual half confused half annoyed look.

“Zeke’s at the movies with Mylene by the way,” Dizzee continues, “I know you don’t actually care where my brothers went.”

Shao frowns, “what’s that supposed to mean?” 

“It’s cool, you guys have a connection, I get it.” He turns from Shao to his miniature mural on the wall, admiring his work, “I don’t think Ra does, he only sees things one way though--can’t help it.”

“Yo, do you _ever_ make any fucking sense?” Shao asks.

Dizzee shrugs, “Ra thinks you’re his replacement. He thinks there’s one slot to fill--like a job application or something... but it’s more like that shapes toy with the pegs and the holes, he fits the Ra shaped hole, you fit the Shaolin one.” He turns back around, “Mylene fits the Mylene hole.”

Shao grimaces, “man, keep her hole outta this.”

Dizzee smiles at the innuendo. He glances out the window, the sun hasn’t set yet so he’s still got plenty of time before he’s set to meet up with Thor. He sits on a sagging chair opposite Shao and settles in.

“Have you ever been in love?”

Shao barks out a laugh, “hell no.”

Dizzee cocks his head, “I thought you were a ‘lady killing romantic’.”

Shao nods, “exactly, hit it, quit it, on to the next one.”

Dizzee considers him for a minute, he’s noticed that despite his bravado in every other aspect of life, Shao always seems to withdraw whenever sex or romance or whatever the hell Boo’s daydreaming about doing on a motorboat comes up. Not to mention how bent out of shape he got at the very mention of Mylene.

“That’s not very romantic,” Dizzee says, just to annoy him. “...I’ve felt love.”

“Yeah, you probably fall in love with trees and stars on some hippy dippy bullshit.”

“Love doesn’t have to be like Zeke and Mylene,” Dizzee says, pressing on despite Shao’s groan, “It can be anything, it’s everything, like--you love spinning right?”

Shao nods begrudgingly, like he hates agreeing with Dizzee on any of his weirdo ideas.

“Exactly, and I love tagging and listening to my sister’s record and hearing you on the turntables.”

Shao stretches out and Dizzee takes a second to appreciate the sharpness of his cheekbones and curve of his mouth.

“That’s not the same thing though,” Shao says, looking up at the peeling paint on the ceiling.

“It is though,” Dizzee insists, he rarely gets a chance to explore an idea like this without someone telling him to shut up, “see, love’s all about energy, when your energy connects with the energy in something else and for a moment you understand your place in the universe.”

Shao cuts through his musing as usual, “a’ight but have you been in love with like an actual person?”

Dizzee falters, he keeps his confusing nebulous feelings for Thor packed away tight and only lets himself explore them late at night after everyone’s gone to sleep and he can think in peace. He doesn’t even examine his feelings when he’s with Thor because everything’s always so heady and intense that he’s too busy feeling to analyze any of it. It feels ...wrong thinking about him here in the temple, especially in front of Shao.

“Okay, it’s a lot more confusing when it’s a person not a record,” Dizzee concedes.

Shao narrows his eyes, “hold up, don’t tell me you got a girl. Bitches must really go for that sensitive artist shit, huh?”

Dizzee’s mouth goes dry. While he and Thor definitely have something that speaks to the cosmos, it’s not really something he wants speaking to the Bronx.

“Not exactly,” Dizzee says, deciding to fall back on the whole scatterbrained poet image, “I just recently made a very… transformative connection that at times speaks of love.”

Shao rolls his eyes.

“It’s hard though,” Dizzee says, picking at the chipping red and blue polish on his nails, no one’s hassled him about it yet--aside from Yolanda telling him to not touch her stuff--but he knows if he painted them again it couldn’t just be brushed off as some weird thing he did for the DJ battle. There’d be _conversations_ and he’d have to come up with some excuse about his artistic spirit to justify it and hope it all blew over.

He really wants to paint them again.

“It’s like,” Dizzee sighs, “Yeah our energy is connecting, but how do I know if it’s the same connection? What I’m connecting on one wavelength and they’re connecting on another, you know?”

“Huh?”

“Like… what if I think the connection's like Zeke and Mylene but it’s really like Zeke and Ra-ra, or Zeke and a fucking tree or whatever, you know?”

Shao seems to understand him now. “gotta know your place in the universe.”

“Exactly,” Dizzee says. “Or is it like, some new connection on a whole other plane of existence and I’m trying to compare something that has no equal?”

“Word.”

“Like you and Zeke,” Dizzee adds, partially just to gauge the reaction he gets.

“What?” Shao sits up and looks at him.

Dizzee shrugs, “your connection’s crazy, it’s like mind reading. Like, you could think something and Zeke’s already thinking it too. It’s pure.” _Just two psychic boys,_ he thinks. “The way you two vibe is special.”

“Yeah, well he’s vibing with Mylene so it must not count for much,” Shao mutters and seems to catch himself, “not like… you know what I mean.”

“I get it,” Dizzee says. He probably gets it more than Shao does, but he’s not about to say that. Despite what everyone else might think, he’s not stupid and he doesn’t feel like getting his ass beat for the sake Shao’s masculinity.

It’s a shame though, everyone should be lucky enough to understand themselves. He knows how fortunate he was, meeting Thor. Even if he’s not sure _exactly_ how Thor feels, he at least knows whatever it is they have is mutual.

He tries to imagine having all the feelings he has for Thor but not being able to name them. Imagines wanting so badly kiss someone without actually realizing that’s what you want.

He looks outside and sees the sun’s starting to set.

“I should get going,” he says, but doesn’t get up just yet.

Shao scoffs, “going to see your girl?”

Dizzee shakes his head, and smiles, “I told you, I don’t have a girl.” He lets his words hang, wondering if Shao will ever put two and two together. He kind of hopes so, even if Shao never turns the mirror back on himself, it’d be nice for someone to know without him having to say it.

He stands and looks down at Shao, sprawled out so regally on a beat up mattress in his crumbling temple. It’s strange, admiring someone so much but also feeling sorry for them.

He heads out but stops just before he gets to the door, “you should think about what I said… you know, meditate on it. Anyway, I, uh, gotta go see a man about a train.”

“Catch you later,” Shao says, but his voice sounds distant.

**Author's Note:**

> catch me on [tumblr](http://queeraang.tumblr.com/)


End file.
